On this day in 1898, the Battle of Virden began when armed members of the United Mine Workers of America (UMW) surrounded a train full of strikebreakers and exchanged fire with company guards. 13 people were killed, dozens more wounded.
After a local chapter of the UMW began striking at a mine in Virden, Illinois, the Chicago-Virden Coal Company hired black strikebreakers from Birmingham, Alabama and shipped them to Virden by train.
The company hired armed detectives or security guards to accompany the strikebreakers, and an armed conflict broke out when armed miners surrounded the train as it arrived in town. A total of four detectives and seven striking mine workers were killed, with five guards, thirty miners, and an unrecorded number of strikebreakers wounded.
After this incident, Illinois Governor John Tanner ordered the National Guard to prevent any more strikebreakers from coming into the state by force. The next month, the Chicago-Virden Coal Company relented and allowed the unionization of its workers.
"When the last call comes for me to take my ο¬nal rest, will the miners see that I get a resting place in the same clay that shelters the miners who gave up their lives on the hills of Virden, Illinois...They are responsible for Illinois being the best organized labor state in America."
Mother Jones
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I like that you manage to split the difference between Tolkien'a earlier and later ideas about the Blue Wizards. I've been thinking of doing something about the colonization of the south by Numenor and it's consequences but the east is equally fascinating and comes with a Nazgul. I wasn't going to involve the blue wizards directly because I was aiming to make it a combination of texts from the invading numenoreans and what texts survived from the Easterlings prior to and during the conquest as they sorta become one thing as official record and another passed down in secret ans the blue wizards would be a constant but never directly seen by the presumed writer of the text. I feel it's important for Tolkien fanfic to stick to the red book of westmarch rule where it's an in universe written history and therefore biased.
I also had some different ideas regarding dark elves of the east who evaded or eacaped morgoth in the first age but tbh I'm scared to bring that into play cause I'd have to get a Tolkien linguistics guy on board to make a separate branch from prot sindarin to get names and stuff.
On an easier one, I've wanted to make an account of Saruman'a dealings with The Shire. Mostly to bring my theory that the bomb the orcs used in the battle of Helm'a Deep was reverse engineered from one of Gandalf's fireworks that was pilfered by some of the sketchier Hobbits who had been sending Longbottom Leaf to Isengard. It fits with the evil cannot create, only corrupt deal and I'm certain if I'd written a letter to Tolkien when he was alive asking if this were the case he'd say "yes".
Also, another theory but more of a debunk of some people's cinema sins bullshit critique of elves being able to see further than the curvature of the earth. They can literally sail a boat beyond the curvature of the earth.
Long story short, if we're both gonna fanfic about The East I'd love to be consistent with each other. We seem to be onto compatible stuff. And also, how are you planning on writing it? I'm going Silmarillion style cause fuck knows I can't write a novel but can write in the silm style. I'm Silm Shady